Bizarre, confusing but nonetheless somewhat unsettling, Fear X was written by Hubert Selby Jr and is the first English language film from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (Bleeder). Although the same can't be said for the picture itself, John Turturro delivers a precise, haunting performance as Harry. He's a security guard in a Midwest mall where his wife and a cop were killed some several months previous. Obsessed in finding out the reasons for the apparently motiveless murder, Harry spends his evenings watching endless CCTV tapes and making notes of potential suspects. His unrelenting search takes him to a hotel in rural Montana, where he realises that there could be an answer to his musings.
While deeply atmospheric and stylishly delivered, there doesn't seem to be much order to Refn's musings on the obsessive Harry. Impressively shot, the picture taunts the audience with its blend of stark images and uneasy pacing. And therein lies the problem with Fear X. After abandoning the traditional narrative structure in favour of this more ambivalent atmosphere, Refn grapples with it again in an unruly final third, and attempts to tie up the loose ends with all the grace of a drunken ice-skating elephant.
